The Second Wave
by Pterodactyl
Summary: Years after Shinichi Izumi defeated Gouto, he is working as a police detective under Lead Inspector Hirama when a parasite contacts him with news of a world shattering event.
1. Recap

A/N

Hey people. Whoever may be reading this now or in the future. I can't guarantee that I will finish this, I can't even guarantee I'll get the next chapter out. I normally lurk over in a different fandom, but I watched the anime, read the manga, watched the two live action movies of this story, and then set my sights on the fanfiction... only to find that there were so few fics, and the law of quality percentage reared its head at the number of good pieces from there.

So, I started _this_. I have a general outline in my head. I refuse to let the dreaded plot ramp hit, I have an ending in mind even. I'm aiming at 50K words, and not for NaNo.

 _This_ is a fanfic for Parasyte. I have primarily based this off of the anime, mostly for the technology update as the original manga was written in the early nineties. Starting the next chapter I have multiple Ocs, this was unavoidable. I am sorry. None of the Ocs are romantic interests, and I tried to have them all have a reason for existing. Where I can, I have used the cannon characters, with luck, believably.

There is one change to the timeline of cannon for this fic. From Migi burrowing into Shinichi's arm, up until the fight with Gouto, was about 21 months. His encounter with Uragami at the end of the show was about a month after that.

Please enjoy.

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"Yes, yes of course, Please tell him I'll be there shortly." Inspector Hirama said into his cell phone before closing it.

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He noticed that the teenager was just as unfazed at the world as the last time they had met inside of an interrogation room, blank stare off to the distance and not a shred of visible emotion. It was almost supernatural and if not for Izumi's reaction to Uragami just weeks ago, he would have thought that the kid was almost a serial killer as well.

His left arm was bandaged up, photos of the stab wound showed the knife had gone straight through the gap between bones. No doubt it would scar. Inspector Hirama looked at the half lidded eyes, noting a new scar bisecting his right eyebrow. With a deep breath, the aging detective prepared himself for the upcoming interview, one that he was certainly not looking forward to.

Brown eyes snapped to the small mirrored window faster than Hirama could imagine, now staring expectantly at the heavy metal door like Shinichi Izumi knew he would open it at any second. Compared to the last time he had seen the kid, right before the monster Gouto had jumped away, he was calm, although not happy about something.

Hirama opened the heavy door. Shinichi piped up from across the table, "Before you shut that thing, I want to talk to you in private. No recording devices, no listeners, off the record."

With that said, Hirama almost said no to the school aged boy, against protocol and everything. Until he made eye contact with Izumi. He gasped when there was a hint of _something_ lurking just beneath the human exterior telling him to just acquiesce or else. The detective thought back to the obvious connection this kid had to the parasites, the reason for the visit, and Uragami's reaction to him. Against all better judgment, Hirama nodded.

"You heard him. If I need something I'll yell."

Shinichi smiled a brief sad grin. "Thanks." he said after a few seconds.

"What is this about Izumi? If it was just Urugami's attack you could have just given a statement and left." he demanded of the student in front of him, knowing that he still had a lot to account for with just the serial killer's escape.

The kid sighed heavily, the sigh of a fighter resigning himself to peace after long and hard boughs of war. "Before, you asked me if I knew a Private Investigator named Kuramori."

Hirama shut his mouth and sat in the opposite chair.

"He was hired by Tamura Reiko to spy on us. We caught him doing so and confronted him about his client's nature as a parasite. After that, we told him everything about the parasites. From what I gathered, he made his way to you and gave you as much information as he dared, just as I told him to do."

He stayed silent, although the revelation was a profound one. The 'we' was unusual, perhaps indicating a _third_ collaborator. Hirama shuddered briefly before waving a hand to hopefully egg on the kid's story.

"Ah, sorry. You look confused. I should start at the beginning." Shinichi looked down at his right hand, guilt plastered all over his face. He sighed again. "There's a few things that you should know about parasites, first off, they don't have emotions per-say, secondly, they have very strong instincts to survive at any cost, third, once they take the brain of the host body they enter into a cycle of pseudo cannibalism, forcing the host body to eat others of its own kind. Fourth, if they _don't_ eat the brain they don't have the instinct for cannibalism. And finally fifth, they are just as intelligent as humans, and often more so. I think that you are already aware of most of the rest of the details."

All he could do was blink in surprise. This was unexpected. Shinichi had his full attention, and even though the kid was talking in a hushed voice with little to no inflection, the detective hung onto every word he could remember.

"Anyways, the night before the mincemeat murders began, a parasite burrowed into my right arm, I stopped it from eating my brain by cutting off the circulation at my shoulder. His name is Migi."

Hirama almost missed the sadness in Shinichi's voice in lieu of needing a double take on what the kid had just said. Instead of addressing it he stammered out, "Migi?"

Shinichi nodded, distantly the detective noticed tears in his eyes. "Yeah. He picked it, after a bit of an argument dealing with him not wanting a name and me foisting the concept and need for one on him. It means, get this, _Right_. For right arm. At that point Migi didn't have a sense of humor, he was just too logical. Parasites suck at names." the kid shook his head, "I'm sorry, it's been hard to adjust without him awake anymore, I've been a bit scattered since he went dormant." at that he trailed off, lost in thought for a moment.

"Dormant?" Hirama asked, suddenly utterly fascinated by what he had been proven was a know-nothing witness. Another sigh from the high school graduate punctuated a lackluster nod.

"Dormant. Otherwise he would have tried to kill you by now if he caught me speaking to a human like this. Spilling our secrets, especially to a cop. You reminded me of Kuramori, and a little of Kana, I told both of them everything too, neither listened to me, us, and they just kept digging, although Kana was just, what's the phrase... blinded by infatuation, she could sense the parasites at a distance and kept on thinking that every single one of them was me." There was more guilt coming off of him in almost tangible wafts of sorrow. "So, I decided to tell you everything in hopes that you might be able to use some of the information, or at least be smart enough to not be caught by one of them."

By this point the detective wished that he had kept a recording device on him. Hirama seriously doubted that he would ever hear any of this again from the kid. So much information.

"Kana, could sense them?"

Shinichi nodded again, "Migi said that she even started to emit her own signal near the end. I wouldn't know, I was never able to pick up on them on my own. She was killed right in front of me by a parasite. So I ripped out its heart and threw it through a wall. Our kill count is at eight."

His face spread into a lonely half smile, shrouded in a ferocity that Hirama hadn't expected of the teenager before this very one sided conversation. It was a feat to avoid reacting to what was coming out of Shinichi Izumi's mouth, they had assumed that there was a second parasite in that scene, but the way the kid had phrased it, made it sound like it was an independent action from his parasite Migi.

"Including Gouto."

Inspector Hirama gasped lightly at the monotone statement, fifty six men slain in under five minutes, and the monster was supposedly taken down by one kid who was terrified out of his mind when that thing even looked at him? He shivered at the thought.

"You want to know how, I know you do. It took three encounters with it, tactics, luck, and blatant underestimation on Gouto's part. Migi was utterly phenomenal at tactics, he's the one who taught me how to fight. There's other stuff involved that I don't know if I want you to know about, but suffice to say it, I took down Gouto alone, without my right arm, armed only with a machete, a metal rod, and a wooden stick, on fire." The far away look came back, he was obviously lost in thought again, scattered couldn't begin to describe whatever this was. "Even after the fight, killing him was hard on both of us, I almost didn't do it, Migi wouldn't."

Shinichi's brown eyes looked down expectantly at his right hand, as if it would start moving on its own and talk back. "Anyways, burnt cyano acrylates forced into the central host body is deadly. Took me forever to get Migi to tell me something like that, not that I could ever hurt him on purpose, and after he healed me when I got pierced through the heart I think that stuff would just end up killing me too. I don't know, if anybody tried to take my arm away at this point, I think I would actually kill them. It would be so easy to do it too, compared to parasites, humans are slow and made of wet toilet paper."

The kid grinned like what he said was funny, Hirama jerked back in surprise, not expecting that sort of response from the teenager, especially not said in that eerie dead monotone half whisper that barely seemed human. His heart beat faster and the detective had to stamp down on his fight or flight response as _something_ in the kid changed. The ferocity from earlier came back enforce and seemed to shrink the room.

"Wh...What?"

"Heh, sorry about that Inspector Hirama, didn't mean to scare you there." Shinichi blinked and the effect was gone as fast as it had come, the detective took a deep shuttering breath. "Parasite humor and all. You spend long enough with them and well..." the kid laughed good naturedly, a winning hearthrob smile plastered onto his face like tape to a wall. It disappeared without a trace and suddenly Hirama was truly wary of the eighteen year old kid in the same way he was around Uragami. "You pick up tricks."

"S-" Hirama gulped, "So. Burnt plastic kills them?" he asked, although he also wanted to ask about a million other things as well.

Shinichi nodded gently, sadness potent in his eyes. Hirama wondered if that expression was faked, or if any emotion that he had shown was true, the kid was turning into headache material. "It made Gouto explode anyways, exposed the host body underneath everything. Migi explained what happened after he came back to being my right arm, telling me about the poison. Yuko recently told me about paint thinner, based on what Migi was relaying me during Shimada's massacre, it kills off their surface cells and creates fractures in their mind. Ahh, you're probably wondering how we killed Shimada. We threw a rock through his heart from the roof of the business building a few blocks off."

"Chemical weapons sound like a definite option should we hunt down any more of the shape shifting things." Hirama mused quietly.

"Just… just don't bully them." He pleaded, actually putting emotion into the statement. After the dead monotone through most of the conversation, it was just as disconcerting as the lack of it before.

"What?"

"They're fragile, they need us to survive, most importantly, they are intelligent and just trying to live here same as us." He sighed again, the passion seemed to drain out of him, as if putting that much effort into emotions was difficult to maintain. "As far as I'm concerned Tamia Reiko was the only decent one of the bunch aside from Migi and Joe, but she's dead and her son is apparently in foster care. She wanted me to take care of him, being what she said was halfway between the parasites and humans. Migi and I are, in her words, conjoined."

Hirama knew that he was staring at the kid at this point, both of his hands were in fists, and he got the sense that he was just hearing the surface of everything. If it weren't for the fact that the kid had correctly stated the suspected means of death for multiple parasites while taking credit for the impossible feats of strength, none of his story would be believable. It felt like he was ten steps behind on everything Izumi was saying, falling back on his training from years ago just to barely keep up.

"Could you elaborate more on that?" he asked, just going on auto pilot and trying to remember as much of everything as possible. His fists were shaking from who knew what at this point, and suddenly Uragami's statement about the something inhuman lurking just beneath the surface made a whole lot more sense.

Shinichi's eyes darted back and forth, trying to figure something out before settling on his right hand. "Yeah, yeah. Migi said that it was due to the shared network of nerves and blood vessels between us, that we were both contaminating each other. That was before I was, um, stabbed through the heart, by the parasite that took my mom's body." It was obviously a sore subject, for good reason too. He had mentioned it earlier, how his parasite had healed him. He closed his eyes briefly, grasped the front of his shirt with his left hand and took a deep breath.

The detective watched the nervous ticks leech out of the kid in front of him as he exhaled, bringing Izumi back to a quiet monotone and unreadable expression. Hirama almost gasped at a realization that would have let him in on a lot of this stuff far earlier. The kid calmed down by taking deep breaths, of course it seemed to be far more effective than anybody else he had ever seen, and it seemed to last a while before his emotions could get the better of him. But it was the tell that would allow better reading of Shinichi in the future.

"When that happened, Migi detached himself from my arm and filled up the void in my chest with himself, retaining organ and nerve function, apparently my spine had been severed as well, along with four broken ribs, and a sliced lung. I don't know much about biology, that was Migi's thing, and what happened was complicated to say the least. He decided to return to my arm through my bloodstream, but something went screwy and he lost contact with the bits and fragments, which were under orders to integrate with, heal and strengthen the surrounding tissue before passing to Migi's main mass. I was only out for a couple of days, and my first memory after the fact was waking up on the floor in a dried puddle of my own blood. That was the last day I needed glasses, and the day I picked up more than a few parasitic tricks and abilities." Shinichi looked Hirama straight in the eye, making full eye contact for the first time.

To his credit, the detective didn't cry out in shock, although he pushed away from the table in an unconscious backpedal and screamed without noise until the eye contact was broken.

"I have some control over that, not much. It still shows up when I'm frustrated, mad, or feeling any emotion particularly strongly. Kana said it reminded her of red glitter and ferocity. Murano says stuff about blankness and cold logic. I'd actually like to hear what you saw out of curiosity. You are the last person I'm going to tell about this."

He had to take a second to calm down, try to relax, do the breathing thing like the teenager in front of him. _That_ was what the killer had seen, or some version of it. Whatever it was, was gone now. Hirama took a rattly breath, all it accomplished was to get rid of the shaking in his hands. The second one was more effective, and managed to let him think clearly enough to acknowledge the question. What _had_ he seen?

"D-death and yellow eyed demons staring through my soul as if it needed to be rendered into food." came pouring out of the detective's mouth unbidden, and despite that, once it was out in the little room, he couldn't think of a better way to put it.

Shinichi nodded, a slight smile forming on his mouth before he started chuckling. For the life of him, Hirama couldn't figure out what was funny. "Migi's eyes are yellow."

The detective gulped as a shiver ran up his spine, he froze.

"Look Inspector Hirama, I am not going to hurt you, or kill anybody if I can help it. Actually, the exact opposite. I know you have an anti parasite task force. I know how the parasites think, I know their patterns, I can go up against them one on one and win. I don't have a lot of skills sir. This is something I can do."

"The task force has been disbanded until another nest has been located."

"You know they prefer the term colony." Shinichi replied quickly, hoping to nip the term in the bud before it irritated him. "Nest implies _family_. They're more like insects. Absolutely no sympathy..." he trailed off, lost in thought again, staring dejectedly at his right hand again.

Hirama paused a second, if more ever reared their ugly heads then the kid would be a dam good person to have on call. Insights like that were invaluable, not to mention being dropped onto his lap for practically free. If he could stand to work with and deal with Shinichi Izumi for any length of time after this though... Hirama didn't know.

"Oh Migi, is this really the right choice? I mean... I would be killing off more of your kind. Without your help sure, but everything still deserves to live." Shinichi whispered downward, trying to talk to his hand covertly.

"Kid, go to university." Hirama said, Shinichi looked up at him suddenly, eyes nearly a perfect dead match for a parasite's. "Get a degree, focus on social sciences and forensics. You pass, I'll try to get you hired under me as a detective. I figure if you know this much about those dam monsters, you can figure out human crimes too."

Shinichi smiled, and the detective was unsure if the new grin was fake or not. The expression looked happy, but it was plastered on, almost as if it was an afterthought. "Thank you sir. I have one more request of you before I leave."

Hirama nodded cautiously.

"Please don't tell anybody about everything I told you today. If put into the situation where I am going to be turned into a labrat, I will fight. I will show no mercy to anybody trying to take me down. I may not have as many tricks as Gouto, but I have enough to make my way through obstacles."

The older man paled considerably as Shinichi stood up calmly from the metal seat on the other side of the table, face deadly serious. He sat in the chair for a minute, staring into space as he contemplated the decision he was about to make.

"I agree on two conditions. I can release the tip about poisons to the government, and I reserve the right to bring you in if I find you are a suspect in any investigation."

Shinichi firmly nodded, "Thank you for agreeing Inspector Hirama." he said while holding out his right hand to shake.

Knowing what he did now, Hirama's hand trembled as he shook the supposedly parasite infected hand to finalize the agreement. With one last parting grin, Shinichi Izumi casually walked out of the interrogation room.

Hirama took his glasses off and rested his head in both hands, thinking about everything that he had heard from the original source. It made Kuramori's report sound sparse.

An hour later and he was drunkenly meandering back to his apartment.


	2. An Introduction

AN: Well… I don't have much of an excuse for how long it took to post this. I've had it written for a while. I'm debating a time skip after this chapter as I don't have anything written for the interim. All of you who review… I'd like to hear your thoughts on the matter. Keep in mind that the plot I have in mind will need the time skip and there are only three scenes I can really see between the end of this one and the instigator of the main plot.

The reason why I didn't post it… I was seriously debating between time skip or not. The other reason why I didn't post it was because I was waiting for Neo-Parasyte to get fan translated. I will be making references to some parts of both volumes, but these will be minor and I don't feel like you'll have to read it for mine to make sense.

Anyways, I hope you enjoy the second installment of this fanfic. I thank PinkSaphira for snapping me out of laziness and making me reread everything I have written on this.

RFYS! (Read From You Soon)

Pterodactyl

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Shinichi Izumi left the interrogation room nervously, police mingled around him, offering assistance in finding the exit every few steps. The precinct was busy, full of people, and full of potential parasites, his senses were straining to their limit to keep up with his demands upon them. A policeman bumped up behind him, dragging a morose and handcuffed teenager not much different from him into the interrogation room adjacent to where Hirama still sat, lost in thought.

The job offer was the best thing that could have happened, completely unexpected from a human that had been making his life difficult not even three months before. He wouldn't be able to get into a top tier school with his test scores and terrible grades, but getting a degree from a lower rated school would be doable.

His eyes scanned the bustling room in a flash of paranoia, hairs on the back of his neck and down his right arm stood on end as Shinichi felt attention from something that was not human. There wasn't anybody directly looking his way, of course with those monsters that little detail didn't matter. Carefully he trudged through a maze of moving people and office furniture to get to the main doors.

The feeling never left, even as Shinichi left the building and almost ran to the nearest train station.

Migi was hibernating, probably for the rest of their life. It was hard to watch your back to the same extent as two sets of senses when you only had one to work with, and the parasites had Shinichi paranoid. The nervousness was manageable when he was isolated, but five or more people and he had to start wondering.

Shinichi kept his head moving, eyes darting around to watch everybody as people filed onto the train with the ever present air of mundane regularity that he wished he could share. Quickly he worked his way to a corner of the train car, limiting the area with which to sneak up on him that was available.

Two years of relying on Migi for locating and determining if a parasite was near, or just identifying the monsters, meant that Shinichi was bad at picking them out of a crowd. He wasn't even sure if the hair on end feeling was one watching him or not.

He made a snap decision not to go home until this blew over. Instead he opted to go back to the old abandoned concrete building a couple stops up from where he and his mysterious potential follower were currently. Shinichi watched the crowd get on and off, keeping an eye out for people who stayed put and who got onto the train when he did.

By stop three, the limitless faces of businessmen, stay at home moms, children, gangs, what looked to be a couple yakuza guys, and a gaggle of teenage girls on a tourist trip, had mostly been eliminated as suspects. It was down to a black haired woman not facing his way, a guy in a gray hoodie that was acting funky, and another guy who kept giving him glances whenever he moved wearing an expensive golden watch. The third guy was acting human, Shinichi noticed a few other people giving him odd looks whenever he would twitch to get a better look at someone. His money was on the dude in the gray hoodie acting _off._

Shinichi ducked off the train, keeping an eye on hoodie and the woman. She didn't get up to leave the train, but both of the guys did. The gray hoodie guy practically ran out of the train after he had stepped foot onto the platform. Glancer looked down at his expensive metal wristwatch, up at the stop name, and casually stepped off the train.

Worry etched into his posture as Shinichi sped walked out of there, muttering about being late for a date to disguise the odd behavior. Talking to 'himself' wasn't new, but he missed the replies greatly whenever Migi's high pitched voice failed to respond.

The hair on end feeling didn't go away once he was above ground again and in West Tofukuyama City. Hoodie had dropped off, probably to do a double tail, it wasn't difficult for parasites, the psychic link thing that they all shared allowed for rudimentary call signs that were otherwise undetectable to humans. Humans like him, unable to detect parasites without help from his dormant hand, but for whom the monsters could easily pinpoint because of his hand. The paranoia seemed justified.

Shinichi slowed down a bit, enjoying the walk despite everything, and keeping a look out for a weapon he could get his hands on. He passed houses and other buildings with expectant glances, waiting for the parasite to show itself. There was an abandoned metal baseball bat wedged into a fence corner that he grabbed with relish, the thing had a soggy handle that was falling apart and a scratched up surface.

Carrying the bat made him feel a bit childish, and a couple of moms on the opposite side of the street agreed, but the safety of having something to block with helped a great deal. Anything against an unknown parasite.

He paused at the four month old police cordon before ignoring it once again and entering the dingy graffiti filled concrete shelter. The place hadn't changed, the hole he busted in the wall with one of the monsters was still there, the spray paint outlines of where he left the bodies were still there, the tags hadn't even changed, death and superstition kept people away.

Shinichi looked down at his hand, still hoping that Migi would wake up and talk to him again. Tell him what to do, get angry for telling Hirama everything, get rid of the paranoia that had been dogging him for months, heck he'd even take the impotent threats on his life if it meant he'd have his hand back. He sighed when his hand didn't move on its own like it was supposed to.

There was a tap tap tap on the concrete from dress shoes, avoidable noise considering the thing wearing the shoes was most likely a parasite. Quiet, but loud enough to announce its presence. Shinichi grabbed the bat with both hands, holding it steadily in front of him so that he could easily move it to block a tentacle flying at his face.

A shiny metal glint flickered from the wrist of his pursuer, he winced, pegged the wrong guy. It was an expensive wristwatch, Glancer had followed him discretely. Shinichi took in the rest of what he was wearing, a generic business suit, blood red tie, and a nice ring on his left ring finger. Brown eyes, black hair, average features, he certainly _looked_ human, and he definitely _acted_ human, but near the end Tamia Ryoko had managed that feat.

The ring was throwing him off. Parasites were not sentimental, and to most the body was little more than a tool, a ring would hamper movement, and that ring was definitely not bulky enough to be a weapon.

"Dam Kid, as much as I love the sight of entrails in the morning I'd rather not be seeing mine. If I'd wanted you dead you would know it. Shinichi Izumi right?" The tone was light, joking even, casual. Shinichi stood his ground, the bat shifted in his grip, pointing straight at the parasite's head.

"The parasites think that you're dead, you know? Gouto's death rocked us to our core, just _knowing_ that you actually lived through a one on one fight with him is impressive."

"Human?" Shinichi asked, uncertain as it wouldn't be the first one to side with the things.

"No." He said blandly, like mentioning the weather, "I am a parasite. And just to get it out of the way, I've killed roughly thirty humans. It is a low number, I get by through my work, it curbs the blood lust, seeing all the dead corpses laid bare in front of me like buffet platters." he paused, smiling as if expecting a laugh, and holding his arms wide, "Doesn't stop me from wanting your flesh in my stomach, but it does mean I eat mostly human food, my wife is a particularly good cook. She's human, and before you ask, she knows I'm not."

He had to pause, process what this parasite was saying. No two of the things had been alike personality wise, so it wasn't out of the realm of possibility for this one to be telling the truth, just very unlikely.

"Your next question is going to be what I do for work, I am a mortician at the Tofukuyama east precinct. The one after that is something along the lines of 'why did you follow me'."

Shinichi nodded, horrified at the situation he now found himself in. He was on edge, poised to dodge and run at a moment's notice, and watching the parasite with hawk like attention.

"That is actually a rather important tidbit of information Mr. Izumi." He smiled, pulling off a happy expression without flaw. "I was telling the truth about Gouto's death rattling even the most aggressive of us to our cores. I caught whiff of your signal at the precinct and had to meet the 'hybrid' that did our greatest warrior in, only to find out that half of you is asleep, quite interesting."

" _I_ did Gouto in Parasite, Migi was incapacitated through that fight. He's not coming back either." Shinichi said, growling the words out to intimidate the monster in front of him, hoping that the mostly true statement would have an effect.

The parasite walked over to one of the window sills and sat on the edge. The motions were slow and deliberate, intentionally trying to avoid provoking Shinichi. "Now that is interesting." He said after a moment of thought, "Your connection to one of us means that you are no mere human, I honestly have no doubt that you could eliminate me if you wanted. But enough of that, I'm not here to fight."

Shinichi slightly lowered the bat from its attack position and into a defensive one, "Why are you here?"

"And we finally get to the hard crunchy bone of the matter." He said with a smile, licking his lips in thought of the meal, "Gouto's death has all of the parasites in the world scared, mostly of you, but the systematic elimination of the Tofukuyama colony by you and the humans has gotten us to realize one thing," he held up his right hand, pointer finger extended. "Humans are dangerous."

"Yeah, what's your point."

"My point is that no matter how succulent your blood, we need to keep better tabs on our own so we don't provoke you. So we decided to form a government system for ourselves, a more formal colony structure that spans the globe. The word's been put out to allow failures like you to be part of our system, once again, because everybody is terrified of you and what you'll do to us if we don't abide by rules that you agree on. Thing is, failures are rare, I only know one other and she's understandably timid. One of the only rules is that a colony has to have five members to be acknowledged. Most parasites don't like me, living with a human the way I do means that I get threats often. The likelihood of forming a colony with ideals that suit me is slim, ideals that are mostly pro-human. I've still been trying, and if you were on board, we would have four..."

Shinichi stared at the parasite for a while, listening to his words, the concept was at least worth looking into. When he trailed off at one member short, Uda popped to the forefront of his mind, "Five. I know a guy. He's infected like me."

"Five then. Three failures and two parasites."

"I prefer the term infected, I don't know, it seems less derogatory than _failures_ even if it still sounds bad."

The parasite nodded softly, "Three infected and two parasites. Wow, a colony. We just need to decide the Head. Rachel has already said that she doesn't want it, Kanon and D-Slicer are in the same boat, I'd be up for it but the way the rules are going Heads have a lot of fighting to do to keep their colonies and for my wife's sake I don't fight, so that leaves you or your guy for the job."

"I have to assume that the Head is the leader of the group, right?" Shinichi asked quickly, trying to clarify the situation. The bat lowered to the floor as the parasite nodded. With a sigh Shinichi put two and two together, "It'll have to be me. Uda and Joe are... not great at fighting."

"Great! Everything's set!" he laughed, pleased over the turn of events, "My name is Yuuma, Yuuma Akiyama." he enthusiastically held out his hand, eyebrows raised in expectation a little too high for a human.

Shinichi hesitated before taking the handshake. Yuuma was still a parasite, and all previous dealings with the things had turned sour with exception of Migi, and even that relationship was strained at worst. Still, this one seemed to be genuine, and the thought of a pro-human parasite was a dream come true. Dimly he noticed that the handshake, aside from being overly long, was also way too lively and firm, even to his parasitically enhanced strength. He smiled back at 'Yuuma', wondering if that was the host's original name or one he had come up with.

"Ahh," Yuuma started after a few seconds, "One more thing."

The handshake cut off, releasing Shinichi's hand from the vigorous motions coming from the parasite. Shinichi gave Yuuma a glare. "What is it?" he asked, obviously irked at the potential of more to the agreement than met the eye.

"There's going to be a big meeting of Heads over in China, kinda a mandatory thing for each colony to send at least one representative to. Odds are you'll be the only infected there."

"Wait, I can't go. I don't have the money to afford a plane ticket!" Shinichi shouted back, the sound echoed through the concrete walls.

Yuuma laughed from his seat in the empty window sill. "This has been brewing for a few months, Rachel and I have pooled resources for stuff like this. The tickets and hotel room are already taken care of. She and I had planned on going together, as I'm not dumb enough to bring my dear Momoko to anywhere so full of my kind even if we desperately need a vacation." his arms swung wide, almost tipping him out of the windowsill and building, before he brought them both into his body in a mock embrace, "Her delicious blood would spill, and torn ligaments would shred like twine at the behest of another parasite's blades." he licked his lips at the thought, but his voice indicated affection.

Shinichi took a half step away from the seemingly mad parasite. "Uhhh, huh..."

" _I_ would never hurt my darling Momoko," he said dramatically, putting emphasis on himself in a striking display, "I just want her to be safe."

"Safe, yeah, I get that." Shinichi said hesitatingly, not quite willing to expose his family to the crosshairs of yet another parasite. "So, who is Rachel?"

The parasite stood up from the window, "Rachel is a parasite I met about a year ago, she runs a bath house. Kanon works there too, although mostly behind the scenes. Don't worry it's a reputable establishment, neither one of the two would let it get seedy."

"Seedy? That's what you think I'm worried about? I'm a human, I have people I care about. People I don't want attacked or worse by you cannibalistic monsters!"

"Hmmm… seediness was what my wife was worried about when I first introduced them." Yuuma trailed off for a moment, "Wow, I guess humans really _do_ worry about different things!" he said as if it was a marvelous discovery.

Shinichi stared at the parasite like he was crazy, and the more he thought about it, Yuuma Akiyama was more than likely insane. Especially for whatever counted as sane for a parasite. He shook his head out of habit, letting his guard down to the monster in front of him.

"It must be like how Rachel prefers soft fatty sections on meals and I prefer shredding tendons, hey how do you prefer your meals?"

"Huh?" he asked back, caught off guard by the bizarre question.

Yuuma smiled his way energetically, "My wife really is a good cook, she knows how to make stuff taste just like human."

"I don't eat human Mr. Akiyama, seriously."

"Huh, weird. Kanon doesn't mind it whenever we pull in a suicide or car crash victim. I just thought that because you and she were infected..."

"I do not eat human." Shinichi said with an air of finality, giving the energetic parasite a dark glare and activating whatever it was that shocked humans in his eyes.

Yuuma sobered instantly, dropping the lively pose for one that was meeker, making him appear smaller and as less of a threat as possible. "No need for that, hey calm down. We're both going to get out of here alive, alright?" he backed away slowly, holding both hands out in surrender.

"What?" he asked quizzically. Shinichi blinked away the glare at the strange behavior.

There was a moment before the parasite stood up to his full height,. "Sorry, reflexes, you just sent out a signal of murderous intent. Quite potently too. And, well, I don't fight. At least my own kind, and especially against a _human_ that has earned more than one title among us. Frankly Mr. Izumi, you _terrify_ me."

"Terrify?" he exclaimed, "Wait, signal? Murderous intent?" he took a step backwards, putting a meter of distance between the two of them and placing his feet directly over where Kana died in his arm, "Title? What are you talking about?"

"You don't know?" Yuuma started to laugh hysterically, cackling like an insane hyena on nitris.

Shinichi shook his head while debating to just run as fast as he could out of the building. Short of a conglomerate like Gouto he knew there was nobody who could catch him on foot. He bit his lip as he figured out the best exit to the concrete maze he wandered into.

The laughter cut off suddenly, leaving only faint traces of echoes for a moment before silence took over the situation.

"The single most important human to the parasites as a whole has no idea about anything that's happened in the few months since Gouto's defeat." Yuuma said without a trace of the previous laughter or liveliness. Shinichi shivered as the words cascaded in perfect parasitic monotone. It was a tone of voice that no human could ever duplicate, sounds that buzzed and twisted around each other through an unchanging lack of melody. "I had not imagined you would be so far out of the loop, _Parasite Slayer_."

Shinichi felt caught off guard, flat footed in a situation that, while not immediately dangerous per-say, was very obviously a bad place to be in. His left hand clenched the bat fiercely, the wet material of the grip squelched and flattened under his fingers.

"In order then. You are the rumored bogeyman to me and my kind, like any sane organism I fear that which can kill me. Secondly, your hand is constantly emitting a signal."

He cut him off at that. "I know that. It's why I can barely sleep, I'm constantly watching for you things. I don't have Migi anymore, and he's not coming back."

Yuuma nodded while keeping a steady eye on the cornered human. "Well, just then, _you_ sent out an extremely potent signal of your own, it was clearly murderous intent, and oddly enough attuned to human awareness just as much as parasitic. Among my kind, such a signal would normally indicate a fight to the death, something I don't want." he fingered the golden ring, rotating the simple band around the digit.

Shinichi's mouth hung open. "I..." he gulped. "After I killed Gouto I… I hate killing parasites. You have to give me some dam good reasons to go after you before I will. Migi and I agreed on it, everything has a right to live and we have no right to say it can't, even if it's bad for humans."

"You mean..." he paused, "Heh, I'm so glad that was just a threat. Coming from the Parasite Slayer himself it's a shock, but knowing that you're not actually going to hurt me is such a relief." Yuuma sighed, relaxing from his panicked posture, "Most of us assume that you'll just kill us on the spot, we have somewhere around forty parasite deaths associated with you specifically." Shinichi mouthed a silent _forty_ , trying to figure out when he had possibly killed that many. "Tack on the bit where every single parasite you've talked with has ended up dead within the hour with exception of Ryoko and Gouto, both of which were considered the best strategist and warrior among us respectively, and you can start to see why I'm so scared right now."

He took another step back, placing the bat against the wall with a hole in it. Shinichi slowly rose his left hand while putting up three fingers, "Don't kill me, don't kill my family, don't kill around me, and we will not have any problems Mr. Akiyama." he smiled weakly as each finger went down.

The parasite stuck both hands in his coat pocket and stood up straight, "Hey, I relegate myself to suicides, car wrecks, and cadavers at work. No need to worry about me." he said confidently, "And I know Rachel only takes out human traffickers."

"Human traffickers?" Shinichi asked, slightly aghast.

"Yeah, has to do with Kanon, she's quite fond of the little girl. Honestly if Slicer hadn't killed her captors she would have been in a far worse situation. Rachel found her and took her in after that. It's been somewhere in the nine month range since then."

Shinichi winced at the story between the lines. "I'd like to meet them someday, but only if Kanon?" the parasite nodded at the name, "agrees to it. No need to scare her with an unfamiliar face."

"She does pretty good with unfamiliar faces, it's the familiar ones she doesn't trust too much, Rachel, Momoko and I are the only ones that she really talks to aside from customers at the bath house."

"So, ahhh..." Shinichi said awkwardly, his left hand scratched his neck briefly. "When exactly is this 'Meeting' thing taking place?"


End file.
